Alternate Timelines

I'm not sure if anyone has posed this question, but as I recently finished watching "The Menagerie" two parter I had to wonder; in the alternate time line created by Nero's appearance in ST 11, would Captain Pike have gone on the mission to Talos IV? Silly, I know, but it's a bit of a puzzler; any opinions are welcome. Thanks in advance. LL&P

Well, if we just consider canon the answer is that we don't know. While watching the movie, I also wondered what Pike and Spock had done in Starfleet before the main plot takes place. But since the Enterprise was supposedly a new ship, the backstory of Pike and Spock as we know them from TOS must be different at least in that point. So it stands to reason that it was also different in other respects.

Noting that divergances started with the Kelvin Encounter. Most probably they would have been comparitively minor to start with (different people who lived or died, ship redeployments and policy changes in response, etc.), but they would have added up over time.

One thing that very obviously came out of all this were delays in at least some Star Fleet construction. We only know that the Enterprise was built much later than canon, but was this an indicator of something happening in Star Fleet as a whole? Insufficient data, but I suspect yes.

Perhaps this delay was to incorporate new technology. I don't doubt that a few snippets of useful data could have been gleaned from the survivors and the shuttle systems. Given twenty-plus years of even tentative R&D, plus whatever else happened in the Galaxy anyhow, there could have been a few breakthroughs that happened earlier than canon.

Short story - whatever happened (or did not happen) at Talos IV was quite different. Presumably a different ship and crew, and Pike may not have been a part of the events there..

Two possibilities would be the Enterprise was built when she originally was, in the form we saw her in TOS, but ...

She was destroyed somehow early in her existence, with a unknown crew aboard. Freeing up her name to be used on a later ship.

Or "The Enterprise" was launched with a different name, and was still in service (with that name) during the events of the movie.

Another possibility, is that the large ship we saw in the movie was built at the time we saw, but in the prime universe, was given a different name ("Enterprise" being used) and was cruising around unseen during TOS.

^^Problem with your theories is that the Abrams Enterprise would have to have a different registry than NCC-1701. Since it still has that registry, we have to assume there was no other Enterprise before it. Well, aside from the obvious, of course. Likewise, having the ship named someting else would mean that other ship would be NCC-1701.

^^Problem with your theories is that the Abrams Enterprise would have to have a different registry than NCC-1701. Since it still has that registry, we have to assume there was no other Enterprise before it. Well, aside from the obvious, of course. Likewise, having the ship named someting else would mean that other ship would be NCC-1701.

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Good point.

The number would have been allocated when the ship was still on the drawing board. So, to my mind, this suggests that the construction delay was not just with the Enterprise. Possibly her entire class, possibly other ship classes as well.

the Enterprise was built when she originally was, in the form we saw her in TOS, but ...

She was destroyed somehow early in her existence

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In the original outline, this would literally have happened: the ship destroyed in the opening scenes was not the Kelvin, but the TOS Enterprise, with Robert April in command. However, the writers were strictly forbidden from destroying the Enterprise (even if they were going to replace it with a newer one), and Paramount ordered it changed to the Kelvin and Captain Robau.

I'd like to see at the end of the last movie this cast does. That this alternate timeline gets reset. Sort of like what Daniels did in ENT. Maybe they could get Trelane (who's actually a Q) to go back in time and park his roaming planet (Gothos)right in front of where Nero's wormhole opens. So when the Narada comes out, it slams into the planet. He then cleans up the mess before the Kelvin gets there.

I'd like to see at the end of the last movie this cast does. That this alternate timeline gets reset. Sort of like what Daniels did in ENT. Maybe they could get Trelane (who's actually a Q) to go back in time and park his roaming planet (Gothos)right in front of where Nero's wormhole opens. So when the Narada comes out, it slams into the planet. He then cleans up the mess before the Kelvin gets there.

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I think Trelane would do just the opposite of that. He's basically the original Troll, after all.

I'd like to see at the end of the last movie this cast does. That this alternate timeline gets reset. Sort of like what Daniels did in ENT. Maybe they could get Trelane (who's actually a Q) to go back in time and park his roaming planet (Gothos)right in front of where Nero's wormhole opens. So when the Narada comes out, it slams into the planet. He then cleans up the mess before the Kelvin gets there.

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So, in a nutshell, you want it to be fixed so that the entire movie never actually happened.

Yep, I can see the moviemakers (and those of us who actually LIKED the movie) totally going for that.

the Enterprise was built when she originally was, in the form we saw her in TOS, but ...

She was destroyed somehow early in her existence

Click to expand...

In the original outline, this would literally have happened: the ship destroyed in the opening scenes was not the Kelvin, but the TOS Enterprise, with Robert April in command. However, the writers were strictly forbidden from destroying the Enterprise (even if they were going to replace it with a newer one), and Paramount ordered it changed to the Kelvin and Captain Robau.

Click to expand...

I hadn't heard that. I would have liked that. George Kirk serving with Captain April on the Enterprise--would have tied in nicely with one of my favorite Trek novels: Diane Carey's "Final Frontier."

Since "Final Frontier" takes place around 2243 (adjusted from the SFC date of 2188 given in the book), I don't see why Carey's novel can't be what later happened to George Prime, after his time on the Kelvin.

Err... assuming one coughs over the bit about him vanishing while James Kirk was a midshipman. And assumes George transferred to security to get a posting closer to home to be nearer to his boys after his tour as XO on the Kelvin.

I would have liked to see what a modern movie budget would have done with a TOS-style bridge. The Defiant in "In A Mirror, Darkly" was a fine job, but that was just for TV - that wouldn't work for the big screen. I assume that if the original ST XI opener had gone through, the April-era Enterprise bridge would have been more ambitious looking.